Donald Cuba, a former Southern Methodist University (SMU) political science major, has been acquitted of a sexual assault charge by a Dallas County jury, Wednesday.
Cuba, 21, was initially charged of raping a freshman girl in a campus dorm room, Feb.10, 2012.
One of the jury members said that there was not enough evidence against him and that it was a difficult case to handle.
During the trial, the victim referred to as Jan Doe, alleged that Cuba forced her onto a bed, held down her arms, removed her shorts and underwear and raped her in a mutual friend's campus dorm room. Cuba did not testify in his own defense.
Doe, 20, approached the campus residential adviser a few days after the incident and took even longer to report the incident to campus police.
The bed sheets and her athletic shorts had been washed by that time. Plus, she failed to undergo a rape exam. As a result, no physical evidence was submitted to the court.
Cuba's lawyer, Robert Udashen, said that Doe herself was unclear about whether she actually consumed alcohol that night, with whom she was in the dorm and whether there was any blood on the sheets.
"All you know about what happened in that room is what she said happened in that room," he said. "All you can do is decide whether you believe her beyond a reasonable doubt."
The trial also saw Doe's counsellor testifying that her patient suffered from post-traumatic stress, but the defense claimed that the stress might have been due to the death of her uncle, her breakup with her boyfriend and a rejection from a sorority and she recently lost her dog too.
Some of SMU students testified during the two-day trial stating that underage drinking and hook-ups with two men, Cuba and another student, Paul Eager, might have caused the incident.
"If she wanted to set up Donald Cuba after a wonderful sexual experience, you better believe she would have saved her shorts, made sure she had DNA evidence and gotten a rape kit test. But this was a girl who was scared and didn't know what to do," Dallas County prosecutor Cresta Garland, said.
After the verdict that went in favor of Cuba, friends and family jumped in joy and exchanged high-fives in the hallway to mark his victory.
"An accusation like this, isn't like another accusation. I mean, it's an inhuman act to do something like that. Just to have people thinking that about you...all you want to do, every single day for me, for almost 8 months, is just get out from under it," Cuba said.
The 21-year-old Cuba, who was banned from SMU pending the trial, is planning to return this fall and eventually go to law school. For him to be accepted back at the school, he will have to either sit through university disciplinary hearings or SMU's president has to waive off the hearing.